Intel readying MIC x64 coprocessor for 2012 • The Register

Thus far, Intels Many Integrated Core MIC is little more than a research project. Intel picked up the remnants of the failed “Larrabee” graphics card project and rechristened it Knights and put it solely in the service of the king of computing, the CPU.

via Intel readying MIC x64 coprocessor for 2012 • The Register.

Ahhh, alas poor ol’ Larrabee, we hardly knew ye. And yet, somehow your ghost will rise again, and again and again. I remember the hints at the 80 core cpu, which then fell to 64 cores, 40 cores and now just today I read this article to find out it is merely Larrabee and only has a grand total of (hold tight, are you ready for this shocker?) 32 cores. Wait what was that? Did you say 32 cores? Let’s turn back the page to May 15, 2009 where Intel announced the then new Larrabee graphics processing engine with a 32-core processor. That’s right, nothing (well maybe not nothing) has happened in TWO YEARS! Or very little has happened a few die shrinks, and now the upcoming 3D transistors (tri-gate) for the 22nm design revision for Intel Architecture CPUs. It also looks like they may have shuffled around the floor plan/layout of the first gen Larrabee CPU to help speed things up a bit. But, other than these incrementalist appointments the car looks vastly like the model year car from two years ago. Now, what we can also hope has improved since 2009 is the speed and efficiency of the compilers Intel’s engineers have crafted to accompany the release of this re-packaged Larrabee.

Intel shows glimpse of 32-core Larrabee beast (Chris Mellor @ http://www.theregister.co.uk)

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